They were worried enough when home systems evolved to include surround sound and high-definition screens. Now, as films become available on demand over the Internet - some studios plan to make movies available just weeks after their release in theaters - theater owners are fighting back with amenities that include reserved seating, freshly prepared food and a nightclub vibe.

Welcome to the movie theaters of the third millennium.

In the past year, the Valley has seen a mini boom in luxury theaters, where the emphasis is on the experience as much as it is the movie.

At iPic Theaters in Scottsdale, for example, moviegoers can enjoy a drink or two in the bar before being escorted to their reserved seats by an usher. Those who spring for premium-plus seating can watch from the comfort of a recliner while a server delivers food and drink. And the term "recliner" isn't used to describe your average executive chair or an airplane seat. In these chairs, customers can kick back and stretch into a fully prone position and not worry about anyone kicking the backs of their chairs.

"We are facing more and more challenges with giving people a reason to come out of their house and enjoy a better experience when they do leave home," said Mark Mulcahy, vice president of marketing for iPic. "With robust home systems, you can enjoy a cinema experience without going to the movie. And if you do (visit a theater), it's kind of a grind when you get there, waiting in line for tickets or concessions and hoping you get a good seat. We offer a stress-free experience."

IPic is not alone in offering an upscale experience. UltraStar Cinemas at the Scottsdale Pavilions on the Salt River Reservation also offers beer, wine and freshly prepared food, as well as "VIP seating," an intimate room at the back of the auditorium that can be rented for $75 extra and offers more privacy, as well as chairs, couches, tables and the ability to bring in or order food for up to 15 people.

UltraStar also is the only Valley movie house that offers "Dbox" seats, which move in correlation to the film. Imagine your seat swaying with Harry Potter as he battles through Part 2 of "The Deathly Hallows," or being bumped and jolted during "Transformers."

Such theaters are an indication of where the industry is going, said Alan Grossberg, president and CEO of UltraStar. Theaters are competing against the home experience - as well as against each other - so it's important to provide a unique experience.

"We want to add more excitement and a better evening out," Grossberg said.

He's well aware of all the comforts of home theater. He, too, has a home system with the latest gadgets, but he also yearns for the shared experience that sitting in a theater can bring.

The key, he said, is to offer just the right bells and whistles to get people off their couches and into your theater.

"It comes down to customer service," Grossberg said. "We want to turn a night out into an event."

A long evolution

Movies - and theaters - have long had to evolve to keep up, both with technology and with customers' tastes. Sound made its debut in the 1927 movie "The Jazz Singer," and color took hold in the 1930s (though costs would limit its use for a couple of decades). Along the way, there were dubious advances, too.

In addition to the fuzzy 3-D that would make iconic those 1950s red- and blue-lensed eyeglasses, there came Percepto, a vibrating device placed in a theatergoer's seat to accompany the 1959 Vincent Price horror movie called "The Tingler." (Despite such creative effort by schlock producer William Castle, who directed the film, "The Tingler" failed to produce any buzz.)

There was 1960's Smell-o-Vision, a system that pumped scent into the theater at specific moments during a movie, and 1981's "Odorama" scratch-and-sniff cards, which were distributed to the audiences for director John Waters' movie "Polyester." The cards had 10 numbered circles to sniff, along with the words "Wait! Wait! Do not scratch until you receive instructions from the film."

The focus moved to the big picture with the invention of Cinerama in the 1950s, a three-projector system that beamed movies onto a curved screen that partially wrapped around the viewers. In the '60s, the process was refined using 70mm film, which was double the size of the standard film. That format lost steam in the 1970s, though, and stand-alone Cinerama theaters were torn down or divided into multiple auditoriums. That decade also brought - and then discarded - "Sensurround," a sound system installed in a handful of theaters to shake your seat and rattle your bones (it was largely identified with the movie "Earthquake"). It, too, soon crumbled under the weight of expectations.

Thankfully, the gimmicks started to give way to true advances, both in technology and comfort. Audiences thrilled to improvements in sound quality (the 1980s THX sound checks bounced sound from side to side and threw it over the audience's heads from behind to end in a crescendo onscreen), and theaters were quick to adopt digital sound systems, which could separate voice, music and special effects through speakers positioned around the auditorium. The 1990s brought creature-comfort upgrades: stadium-style seating, moveable armrests and practical cupholders.

Through the 2000s, however, the greatest strides took place in home theater. With digital surround sound, HD screens and the ability to pause the movie for a bathroom break, some fans saw little reason to go to theaters anymore. Between cable TV's on-demand services and such content distributors as Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand and Apple's iTunes store, thousands of films are available - at home - with the touch of a button.

Some movie studios even are narrowing the theater-to-home window to 60 days, planning to charge up to $30 for the earliest releases. Though experimental, the narrower window has many theater owners concerned, said Patrick Corcoran, director of media and research for the National Association of Theater Owners.

"There is a problem with exclusivity," he said. "Once you start narrowing the window, you can cannibalize the theatrical market."

Theater owners are far more concerned about movie quality and availability because, ultimately, people will go to theaters as long as there's something worth seeing, Corcoran said.

"The prime attraction will always be the movie," he said. "But theaters are still looking for ways to broaden their reach and differentiate themselves from their competition. That's where certain amenities can influence their choices."

The dine-in trend

The latest player to step into the Valley's luxury-theater spotlight is AMC, one of the largest chains in the nation. The company is transforming its location at the Camelback Esplanade into a dine-in theater to include reserved seating, fresh food and a bar.

The concept - now in eight AMC locations in five cities - was developed to expand the moviegoing experience, AMC Entertainment spokesman Ryan Noonan said.

"Dinner and a movie go hand in hand," Noonan said. "Why not put them together? And the bar was a natural extension. That way you can talk about the movie you just saw over a beer rather than in the parking lot."

Once the Esplanade has been retrofitted with a kitchen and dine-in-the-dark auditoriums (the work is expected to be finished by summer's end), moviegoers will relax in recliners and push a discreet button to summon a server when the mood strikes. And the table lighting is just enough to illuminate the food without distracting others in the audience.

Servers will be trained to be just as discreet, Noonan said, because service should never interrupt the show.

"It's still about watching movies," Noonan said of the Fork & Screen concept. "It is a soothing experience, and we want to make sure not to disrupt it."

Serving dinner with a movie isn't new. Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club in northeast Phoenix has been doing it for 10 years, offering meals as well as wine and beer (and showing films that were released a month or two earlier). But the growing number of dine-in theaters is indicative of the competition they see at home.

Greg Western would like to think he has something to do with that.

Western, owner of Get Wired Home Theater, has installed systems that can equal (Western would insist they exceed) the movie-theater experience.

Some of the high-end equipment he has installed throughout the Valley includes high-def projectors, 120-inch screens and sound systems with as many as 13 speakers (two of them subwoofers). He installs five to seven speakers at the very least.

"With that kind of system, most people are happy to wait for movies," Western said. "It's cheaper and a lot more convenient."

A social experience

Films have weathered such storms before. There were those who predicted a slow fade-to-black as TV spread across America. Then movie theaters were expected to be grievously wounded with the arrival of the VCR, and later the DVD, and now movies-on-demand. Yet today's box office still can take in $100 million or more on a typical summer weekend.

Grossberg at UltraStar believes that's because the movies themselves are the key.

"I've been doing this 35 years, and at one time or another, someone is predicting trouble for the movie business," Grossberg said. "But people don't want to sit home and watch TV all the time. They want to get out. Where do they go? The movie theater."

At its heart, moviegoing is a social experience, one that can't be duplicated in the home, said Mike Bowers, president of Valley-based Harkins Theatres.

Harkins has no plans as yet to join the luxury-theater trend, preferring to focus on keeping its theaters affordable, Bowers said, while noting that the chain offers one of the most expansive line of concessions in the business.

As long as Hollywood makes movies that people want to see, theaters will continue to thrive, he said. And rather than feeling threatened by those who enjoy movies at home, Bowers is encouraged by it.

"We believe movie-watching begets moviegoing," he said. "The more people who watch at home, the more who will go to theaters."